README

Parser library for reading and extracting PDF document structures.

💖 Part of the tc-lib-pdf / TCPDF ecosystem (100M+ installs). Sponsor its maintenance →

Overview

tc-lib-pdf-parser parses raw PDF data into structured PHP arrays suitable for extraction, analysis, and downstream processing.

The parser is designed for tooling scenarios such as content inspection, metadata extraction, validation, and migration pipelines. It favors clear structured output so applications can build higher-level analysis features without depending on fragile regular-expression parsing.

Features

Parsing Capabilities

• Cross-reference and object stream parsing
• Filter-aware stream decoding integration
• Structured output suitable for custom extractors

Runtime Design

• Configuration options for tolerant parsing modes
• Pure-PHP parser with no external service dependency
• Typed exceptions for error handling

Requirements

• PHP 8.2 or later
• Composer

Installation

composer require tecnickcom/tc-lib-pdf-parser

Quick Start

<?php

require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$raw = file_get_contents('/path/to/document.pdf');
$parser = new \Com\Tecnick\Pdf\Parser\Parser(['ignore_filter_errors' => true]);
$data = $parser->parse((string) $raw);

var_dump($data);

Development

make deps
make help
make qa

Packaging

make rpm
make deb

For system packages, bootstrap with:

require_once '/usr/share/php/Com/Tecnick/Pdf/Parser/autoload.php';

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please review CONTRIBUTING.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, and SECURITY.md.